NYT: Rebuilt Iraq Projects Found Crumbling

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/29/world/middleeast/29reconstruct.html?hp=&pagewanted=print


April 29, 2007
Rebuilt Iraq Projects Found Crumbling
By JAMES GLANZ

In a troubling sign for the American-financed rebuilding program in Iraq, inspectors for a federal oversight agency have found that in a sampling of eight projects that the United States had declared successes, seven were no longer operating as designed because of plumbing and electrical failures, lack of proper maintenance, apparent looting and expensive equipment that lay idle.

The United States has previously admitted, sometimes under pressure from federal inspectors, that some of its reconstruction projects have been abandoned, delayed or poorly constructed. But this is the first time inspectors have found that projects officially declared a success — in some cases, as little as six months before the latest inspections — were no longer working properly.

The inspections ranged geographically from northern to southern Iraq and covered projects as varied as a maternity hospital, barracks for an Iraqi special forces unit and a power station for Baghdad International Airport.

...

Officials at the oversight agency, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, said they had made an effort to sample different regions and various types of projects, but that they were constrained from taking a true random sample in part because many projects were in areas too unsafe to visit. So, they said, the initial set of eight projects — which cost a total of about $150 million — cannot be seen as a true statistical measure of the thousands of projects in the roughly $30 billion American rebuilding program.

But the officials said the initial findings raised serious new concerns about the effort....

:eyes:

But everyone (read: Halliburton and its subsidiaries) got paid, and won't be required to refund a dime of it, or correct any of the problems. SURPRISE.

.

It certainly conveys a message. It made me cross my legs, Ick. Are you a man or a woman?

Usually it would be stuck between the crossword puzzle and the want ads.
This is really not a new story it has been reported repeatable over the years.

The corruption and cronyism is so bad
that it is now hard for them to ignore.

Not.

Sadly.

Such waste. Such an offense to all, both us as taxpayers and the Iraqi people sold a bill of goods and piles of crap. They need to just stop helping.

IMO, common sense tells me that if the reconstruction of American towns and cities is un-successful in Louisiana and Mississippi where daily bombings and violence do not occur, why should I think the successful reconstruction of Iraqi cities would be?

...and reporting on the reality on the ground that they *should* have been reporting on all along.

Of course, when you've agreed to the status of "embedded" observers (for your own safety (cough, cough -- wouldn't want you to get caught in any "friendly" crossfire, like that Al Jazeera photographer, or the Italian journalists, or...)) -- you don't really have much standing as an independent reporting entity.

Even here, they are only reporting on the findings of an official inspection. Which is a good thing, of course, but I do remember a time when we expected so much more from our reporters.

"They hate us for our freedoms."
Yeah, right. Actually, they hate us for being imperialist bullies that come in, wreck the place, set up their own cozy little 'Green Zone' while pretending to paint schools (:puke: give me a break on that effing painted school already) and the stuff that they finally DO build is SHIT for quality.

Damn...I didn't mean to get ranting here...but this is just too disgusting. :cry::argh::nuke:

"And don't tell me you were expecting more from a Connecticut yankee preppy cheerleader deserter pretend-Texan.
Unless you are a republicon kool-aid drinker, you know better than that.

"I am the DECIDER, and I have decided to let more massively lucrative
no-bid contracts to Halliburton & Cronies to fix
this shit up again. Smirk, smirk, smirk."

- Commander AWOL

I'n't?


Batting .130